Juan Sanchez and Rudy Martinez of the carpenters union shake hands with a worker who received back wages from an employer.

// Photo by Anthony Pidgeon

At the first job site Sanchez visits, a Latino worker tells him he doesn’t know who he works for, but he is happy to be earning $15 an hour. At the second site the supervisor politely denies Sanchez access. At the third site, the foreman changes his story suspiciously. First the foreman says the workers are paid by the square foot; then he says they are paid by the hour, and claims not to know how much his own workers are getting paid.

Sanchez jots down details when he returns to his vehicle: the name of the supervisor, the subcontractors on site, how long the job is expected to last, the workers he spoke with and what they said. He never asks about immigration status. “It’s not something we ever ask about,” says his colleague Evelyn Shapiro-O’Connor, who helped train Sanchez and conducts similar investigations in Seattle. “The law says the workers deserve to get paid if they do the work. That’s not an immigration issue.”

Later, Sanchez’s notes will get entered into a union database that tracks the industry. “We know about every job that’s going on,” Sanchez says as he drives from an apartment in Northwest Portland to a shopping center in Beaverton.

At each site Sanchez hands out business cards to supervisors and workers alike. “You never know what will happen to those cards,” he says. One time his card found its way to a worker who was making low wages building a new school. The worker contacted Sanchez under a false name at first, then got back to him later using his real name, and eventually went through BOLI to collect $30,000 in back wages for his crew. It turned out that the subcontractor was charging “prevailing wages” of over $40 per hour for the publicly financed job but paying workers far less.

Often acting on union tips, BOLI has conducted more than 1,000 investigations into alleged prevailing wage rate fraud since 2005, and collected more than $5.8 million in back wages. Brad Avakian, who has served as commissioner of BOLI since 2008, says most labor law violations occur within industries that employ many immigrant workers such as construction. “A lot of these folks don’t have a network of support, and it’s very easy for employers to take advantage of them,” says Avakian. “It’s a real problem, and the millions of dollars that we collect in back wages for workers proves that it’s a problem.”

Comments

No doubt that some of the work that the Carpenters perform is of value but it needs to be pointed out that:the carpenters not only shut down one Local in Portland but all Locals throughout Oregon, Washington, Montana, etc.. There was a claim of finical mismanagement with our Portland Local but these charges were never substantiated and were simply an excuse to throw Pete Savage out of office. If those charges were true why did the Carpenters fail to turn the information over to the Department of Labor as required by law?

As for paying workers in cash, if one looks at the PNWRCC's LM2 reports you will not find one of people hired to protest listed as required by law. These employees of the Regional Council are required under the Landgrum Griffen Act to be report, the only way around that is to pay them in cash.

Over the past five years the Regional Council has been the only labor group cited by the Department of Labor for failing to pay their employees minimum wage and overtime. The Regional Council also settled out of court with Hoffman Construction for unlawful coercion and intimidation. The Carpenters also settled out of court with another Northwest developer in Tacoma Washington for more than $10 million for illegal intimidation and coercion. This is money that came directly out of the members pockets to pay for the mistakes of hired staff such as Tweedy,Little, Prindle, and Matta.

The Regional Council routinely cuts sweetheart deals behind the backs of the membership with employers allowing employers to circumvent the standard area agreement. The majority of these workers are Latino and looked on as second class members in the Regional Council.

Most recently the Carpenters, and their partners the Operators, developed a scheme in conjunction with high profile employers to break the Longshore Union's strike in Longview Washington. The Carpenters and Operators are planing to use this favor to Kewit/General to out maneuver and minimize the Cement Finisher and the Laborer in next years negotiations with the AGC. The Carpenters master plan is eliminate all other groups leaving the Carpenter as the exclusive organization in the construction field.

The members no longer have a say, we no longer have the right to vote on Business Representatives and when we turned down our contract, Doug Tweedy and John Little were at this meeting, we were told that our vote didn't mean anything and that "leadership" would be telling us what's best from now on.

So this is the real story, you won't get the truth from the staff because truth is no longer in their vocabulary.

Most of us in the carpenters union are not working and you mention in this article about your passion.Where is your passion for the membership? Why do you guys give deals different to our agreement to other cheater employers that hurt our signatory companies? Why have you abandoned your employers and your membership? We are tired of guys like Sanchez acting like he actually cares when all he cares about is taking orders and keeping his job. We are tired of guys like Matta saying he is passionate about cheaters and crooks when off the record he would cut a deal with them in a heartbeat. We are tired and our numbers are growing. Even though our union, which really isn't a union anymore, has taken the democracy away from us we have options. The option many of us have been talking about is the option that our brother's and sister's in New York and Jersey have done, start are own carpenters union. We are not proud union carpenters anymore and we are ashamed of our leadership. This article makes us sick.

Interesting comments above. The Carpenters union will gladly hold out their hand for my union dues and they have no work, dont promote themselves and are just "pre-vail" [blocked]es. Always want a prevail job..... pathetic.

Dont forget Eric Franklin.... clueless in Seattle. The article is typical "media" BS just look behind the scenes and connect the dots. They should interview carpenters who aren't suck-asses !!!

0#4Wage and Hour Steamroller —
Squished Like A Pancake2011-09-19 13:45:12

Not pertaining to the union or prevailing wage, there appears to be a lack of supervision into the investigative practices of the W&H Division. In my opinion, employers are guilty until proven innocent. If it is a small business, especially in these troubled times, most likely cannot afford to hire an attorney to prove the company is innocent. As a state agency, the bureau employees are public servants. Yeah, right. Again, in my opinion, W&H employees are on a money-hungry power trip and are rude, ruthless, and out of control. One, and only one, person employed there was civil and actually listened. This person told me, in regard to the investigations unit authority to issue a formal complaint, "(they) are supposed to have investigated the claim first." , There is more, MUCH more. Once again,it is my opinion th system has run-amok.

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